The Mysterious Disappearance of Chelsea Grimm: A year on, a grieving family still looks for clues
Phoenix, Arizona: On October 4, 2023, Chelsea Grimm was reported missing by her family. The 32-year-old was on her way from San Diego to Connecticut, when she decided to camp in Northern Arizona. On September 28, two days before she was seen for the last time by a woodcutter in the area, Chelsea spoke to a police officer in Williams near her campsite after he saw her crying in her car.
“Are you doing alright?” the officer asks in the body cam video.
“Yeah, I just was doing a photo shoot of the lost soldiers and got a little emotional, so I was crying before I got back on the road,” Chelsea replies to the officer.
And though Coconino County Sheriff’s Office found her car abandoned the next day with flat tires and a lot of her personal belongings inside, nobody ever saw Chelsea again.
Reports claim that Chelsea had recently gone through a breakup, and was making the trip home with her pet bearded dragon. Her parents say she had plans to camp alone in the area but became lost along the way.
“It’s a nightmare, living in this limbo where you don’t know if your child is alive or not,” her mother told ABC15. “You swing between hope and despair hundreds of times a day.”
Chelsea's family have arrived at Flagstaff from Connecticut and a private investigator, Justin Yentes, is aiding them in their search efforts. “We’re going to stay here as long as it takes,” her father said. “We’re hoping to find something—anything—that gives us some insight into what happened to Chelsea.”
The family has also put up new missing person posters and even installed a billboard.
Authorities are still investigating and the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office has stated that while there is no current evidence of foul play, they are continuing to explore all possibilities.
“I have to remind myself every day not to give up hope,” her mother said. “When I forget, I look at the word ‘hope’ that’s engraved on my bracelet, and I keep going.”
One of the things that concerns her mother is the fact that Chelsea's camera was in her car. “Her camera was a part of her personality and an extension of who she was, and I would think that if she were leaving the car she would take her camera,” she said.
It is a fear echoed by other photographers who have been following the case online: "This case is so weird because as a fellow photographer I just don’t see her leaving her camera behind, I know I wouldn’t," said one poster on Reddit, with another agreeing, "Especially when she took her purse and keys and bearded dragon. My camera comes with me always. I’d never take my other normal stuff and ditch my camera especially somewhere it could be stolen."
One online sleuth posed a few questions too: "Were there any fingerprints in her car that weren't her's? Were her tires flat because something on the road punctured it or were they punctured purposely?"
Meanwhile as authorities and Chelsea's parents continue to look for her, conspiracy theories continue to flow through the unfettered Internet.